cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ninja/post/10393
“Boomer shooter” is the latest term to follow the likes of “Roguelike” or “Soulslike” in the realm of hyperspecific gaming subgenres. It applies to first-person shooters that intentionally harken back to the classic PC games of the late ‘90s like Doom and Quake.
A more accurate term would be X Shooter, or even Shooter eXtreme (since that’s totally how stuff was advertised to my generation). A boomer wouldn’t even be able to play the game.
I grew up seeing it referred to just FPS or early FPS. First-person shooter is the best term, it is descriptive and sets it apart from the many other genres of shooting games, like side-scroller or third-person.
Seriously, if you want to give the moniker of boomer shooter to something, give it to Asteroids.